


Escape from the Lich's Tower

by aunt_zelda



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anger, Canon Asexual Character, Captivity, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Flirting, Kissing, M/M, Magic, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28687434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: The night they fled the lich’s tower they each took a book for themselves.Sasha took a grimoire crammed with defensive spells and concealment charms.Tim took a history of the Jester’s Carnival.Jon took a guide to the many poisonous animals and monsters of nature.Martin took a collection of epic poems from a legendary bard.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	Escape from the Lich's Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prim_the_Amazing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/gifts).



> I was thinking of the Q&A answers to what D&D class each of the characters would be, and then used that as a jumping off point for this fic.

The night they fled the lich’s tower they each took a book for themselves. 

Sasha took a grimoire crammed with defensive spells and concealment charms. 

Tim took a history of the Jester’s Carnival. 

Jon took a guide to the many poisonous animals and monsters of nature. 

Martin took a collection of epic poems from a legendary bard. 

\- - -

_Tim was thrown into the dungeon in chains. He’d attacked what he’d thought was a member of the Jester’s band; instead it had been a servant of the lich._

_Maybe the lich was going to kill him. Or maybe the lich would simply leave him here to rot. Neither option suited Tim. He examined the cell and found a promising sliver of rusted iron, which freed him from his ankle manacles. Tim was starting to work at the chains on his wrists when he heard footsteps approaching._

_A blue light globe circled around an approaching woman with dark hair and simple clothes. A sigil on her hand marked her as one of the lich’s servants._

_Tim squared his shoulders for the incoming torture._

_“Hmmmm,” the woman looked him up and down. “And what can you do?”_

_Tim blinked. He’d expected some questions, but this wasn’t one he’d anticipated. “Pardon?”_

_“What can you do? Can you fight, read, speak other languages, tame beasts, identify tracks?”_

_“I can do all of those things, and more besides.” Tim said cautiously._

_“What else?”_

_Tim unlocked the last set of manacles and stood up._

_The woman smiled. “I’m Sasha, one of the lich’s servants. You’re useful. I’m going to ask that you be released into service, instead of killed.”_

_“Thank you?” Tim was baffled._

_“Don’t thank me yet.” Sasha turned and left Tim in the dark, dank cell._

\- - - 

The night they fled the lich’s tower they each had a part to play.

Sasha procured the right keys for the right doors. 

Tim overpowered one of the lich’s fearsome gate guards. 

Jon sensed when and where the lich would be. 

Martin set the fire that distracted the lich long enough for them to escape. 

\- - -

_Tim found it was very easy to make Martin blush. Suggestive comments, the right way of stretching, noting the way Martin gazed longingly at Jon … all of it brought an adorable blush to Martin’s cheeks._

_“Why haven’t you told him?” Tim asked after a few weeks._

_“It’s too dangerous,” Martin whispered. “The lich uses anything against his servants. And besides, Jon … well he doesn’t. Do that. Sort of thing.”_

_Tim frowned. “How do you know?”_

_“I heard … well, never mind.” Martin blushed again, this time with visible shame._

_“Love can come in many forms.” Tim shrugged. “There’s plenty of romances in the library where lovers never share a bed. They’re still very romantic, at least I think so.”_

_Martin looked pensive. “I hadn’t … I mean …” Martin frowned. “Maybe I misunderstood. Or jumped to conclusions.”_

_“Maybe you should talk to Jon about this.” Tim suggested._

_Martin shook his head. “I couldn’t!”_

_Tim sighed, but didn’t push the issue._

_“… help me with these books?” Martin asked._

_“Of course.” Tim helped Martin carry a crate up the long winding staircase._

\- - - 

At the coast, a ship captain offered them passage. But his gaze lingered on Martin too often, and the figures of his crew were like wraiths with cold, empty eyes. 

At the mountain pass, a smiling man offered to guide them. But his smile was too broad and his promises too lofty. 

To the south there were tunnels that went beneath the roiling hills. But they led to the dens of spiders from Jon’s childhood nightmares. 

So they went west, towards the setting sun, and into wild and dangerous forests. 

\- - - 

_“Why didn’t you ask the lich to change your body?”_

_Jon paused, halfway through skimming through a newly arrived book to the library. “What?”_

_“Well, you know,” Sasha shrugged. “I always wondered. So now I’m asking.”_

_Jon sighed heavily. “I, I do want that I suppose but … not enough, for what I’d have to go through, to let him touch me.” Jon shuddered._

_Sasha nodded._

_“Why did you let him?” Jon asked. “You knew what the price was.”_

_“Yes and no.” Sasha toyed with a quill. “I knew I’d have to serve him. I thought that was worth it, to have the body I wanted, to feel at home in my own skin. But then … then he did this and I woke up in the body of someone else. There’s someone out there with my old body. Sometimes I can feel it, when it’s cold, or it’s raining, or when they’re hungry.” Sasha snapped the quill. “He didn’t tell me the full cost.”_

_“Would that have changed anything for you, knowing the full cost?” Jon asked, unable to help himself._

_“Yes. No. I don’t … I don’t know.” Sasha made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “I hate that he does that. Makes people question everything, even the things they’d stopped thinking about so they could sleep at night.”_

_Jon, for whom a place that encourages questions into the unknown had been a boon, stayed silent._

_“Thanks. For the answer.” Sasha said at last._

_Jon nodded in solidarity, and dove deep into the new book._

\- - - 

Jon sold the book on poisonous creatures. “I’ve read it; I memorized it.” Jon shrugged as the others bemoaned the loss. 

“You what?” Martin asked. 

“Memorized it.” Jon looked at their confused expressions. “Can’t … everyone do that?”

“No, Jon, everyone can’t.” Tim said. 

“Useful.” Sasha’s eyes were alight. “Very useful.”

Martin tried to memorize ballad after ballad, stanza after stanza, from his book. The words stuck in his head more easily with music. 

\- - - 

_Martin was raging in the library. There was a nook he could hide himself in and yell into a pillow when the anger became too much. The lich delighted in making him feel exactly how small and powerless he was in the face of such might, and today had been one of those days. Martin vented his frustrations and set the pillow aside, slumping against the wall._

_“Bastard!” Martin hissed._

_A flicker of purple light lashed out from his lips like a whip. It snapped across a nearby chair, singeing the wood._

_Martin gasped and pressed a hand over his mouth._

_“Martin!”_

_Martin whirled around and saw Jon staring at him, arms laden with a stack of books._

_“I’m sorry, I didn’t … I don’t …” panic seized Martin. “Please, don’t tell him!” He knew what the lich did to those who had the gift of magic, and displeased him. Martin had seen the husk-like bodies afterwards. He’d heard the lich threaten to do that to Sasha after he’d caught her reading a forbidden tome._

_“Martin, Martin,” Jon murmured, the books dropped at their feet and Jon’s hands gently taking Martin by the shoulders. “Breathe, please breathe, shhhhhh …” he awkwardly embraced Martin before Martin tightened the hug._

_“Please, don’t tell!” Martin felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest._

_“Of course I won’t tell. I’ll keep you safe.”_

_That was funny, Jon with the soft hands and lithe frame of a scholar and not a warrior, promising to keep Martin safe somehow._

_“You can’t. Nobody can stay safe here.” Martin whimpered._

_“There has to be a way out. We can find it: together.”_

\- - - 

They camped for the night in the shelter of a knot of trees and a rocky outcropping. 

Sasha poured over her book, tracing glyphs in the air and smiling as each spell unfolded before her. Each new day brought a new spell, a new lesson, a new way of warping the world to suit her whims. 

Tim polished the symbol he’d picked up in town at a temple, murmuring the words to the Oath he’d taken. He would root out cults and extra-planar corruption, protect his friends, and shield his mind to outside influences. 

“Someday I’ll write words so scathing they burn off the page and scorch anyone who tries to harm us.” Martin promised, scribbling words in his notebook. “Someday.”

Jon poked at the fire, scowling. “I don’t understand. I should have been able to do that spell today.”

“Jon, just because you got that mountain lion not to maul you doesn’t mean you’re a Druid.” Sasha said. 

“I am!” Jon insisted. “I know I am!” He tossed the stick into the fire.

A lash of green energy spiraled out from his hand, slicing through the fire and shooting off into the night sky. 

They all stared in shock. They’d seen that spell before, in the lich’s tower. 

“You have magic sure, but it’s not from nature.” Sasha looked at him with wide eyes. “You’ve made a pact with the Dragon’s Eye.”

Jon shook his head. “No! No I don’t. That’s what the lich did!” he spat on the ground. “I won’t. I refuse.”

“We’ve all been marked Jon, one way or another.” Tim said wearily. “There’s worse things out there, waiting to sink their claws into someone without a mark.”

“I’ve read those books too, Tim,” Jon glared. “I know.”

In the tense silence that follows, Martin speaks up. “… cup of tea?”

Relieved, they all concur and settle in for the night. 

\- - - 

_They were all relatively chaste in the lich’s tower. Jon, who’d been there the longest, had seen what the lich did when servants were in love and displeased him. He still had nightmares about the screams. With every new servant he warned them adamantly about the dangers of such bonds._

_This meant that desire and attraction had to be handled carefully. Fortunately all of them were very creative thinkers._

_Sasha sent coded messages to each of them, leading them to books in the library with erotic stories within, or hidden nooks in stairwells where she’d carved lewd art enchanted to react to touch._

_Tim flirted outrageously with everyone and anyone, obscuring his true desires by gaining a reputation that in truth was unfounded. He defended the others from threats, be that from other servants or attacks on the tower from outside forces._

_Martin conveyed his affection with small kindnesses, things that would go unnoticed by the lich. Bringing his companions food and drink spiced with their favorite flavors, reminding them to sleep before moonrise, noticing when their clothing needed darning._

_Jon struggled the most, irritable and acidic at the best of times. But it was he who found the most inventive ways of managing intimacy under scrutiny. The lightest brush of his hand against someone’s knee, sneaking into another’s bed and pleasuring himself so that they would find rumpled sheets at night, arch comments with double meanings that verged on the filthy._

_All of them dreamed of a life outside the Tower. Soon enough, the dreams became too much to bear, and shifted into plans._

\- - - 

It happened slowly, each of them circling each other in closer and closer orbits until finally they could stand it no longer. 

Tim’s hand lingered on Sasha’s hip one morning mounting the horses. Jon’s fingers encircled Martin’s wrist as he handed him afternoon tea. Sasha lured a story about an old love from Jon’s lips that made him blush. Martin composed a limerick about the way the evening sun caught Tim’s hair.

Their bedrolls shifted closer and closer together each night. Watches started to feature someone sitting up and petting someone else’s hair, or outright sharing blankets during colder nights. 

The first proper kiss was between Tim and Jon. Tim teased Jon one morning and Jon leaned in close for a kiss, startling Tim to silence. 

Tim kissed Sasha next, leaning against a tree and pulling her close. She wrapped a leg around his waist and half climbed him.

Martin kissed Jon when he brought him the evening tea. It was almost a forehead kiss before Martin turned red and kissed Jon’s lips. 

From there things descended into a tangle of limbs and heat and tenderness. Sasha suckled a bite at the crook of Jon’s neck. Tim teased delightful sounds from Martin’s throat. Jon reeled Martin in for more kisses and steered Martin’s hands away from his belt. Sasha helped Tim out of his clothes. Martin steadied Tim as Sasha rode him. Jon pulled Tim’s hair while Tim went down on Martin. 

The fire almost guttered out and all of them flailed their hands out to cast various spells. The embers surged into a towering inferno that flared bright as the sun, and then just as suddenly went dark. 

They laughed, snuggling together, and slept in a messy heap without need of the fire’s warmth that night.


End file.
